BF Editor's Blog Part II, David Sentelle: How One Right-Wing Judge Can be a Wrecking Ball to the Constitution

As we mentioned in our first BuzzFlash Editor's Blog on November 12, stick with us for awhile as we see how this new addition to BuzzFlash unfolds. I'll be suprised as you will be, and I'm the one writing it.

So for our first series of entries, I am focusing on David Sentelle, the Zelig of GOP Bush Neo-Confederate, Partisan hack federal judges. He seems to be at the center of so many rulings that have helped shape the destruction of justice, protect the GOP, and dismantle a secular democracy. We started with a brief introduction to just three of his pivotal judicial roles yesterday in our first entry.

Today, we are continuing to blog about Sentelle -- and we will be getting to his judicial twin, Judge Laurence Silberman (yes, who Bush had co-chair the"The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction," which whitewashed Bush and Cheney.).Just be patient. More on Silberman, who played a role in trying to impeach Bill Clinton while he was sitting on the D.C. Appellate Court and ruling on motions related to the impeachment process, down the road.

But today, let's continue on in our journey into the hijacking of our federal judiciary and Constitution by the GOP as we continue to explore the life and times of Judge David Sentelle.

November 13, 2007

Since even BuzzFlash readers are inundated with so much information, they forget many of the details of the Republican assault on the vision of the founding fathers of this nation, we thought that we would begin today with an excerpt of a BuzzFlash editorial from May 23, 2005. It is entitled "The War for American Constitutional Democracy," and concerns the then threatened (but never materialized, of course) Democratic filibuster on another partisan hack Bush appointment to the federal bench. (Remember when then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was boasting that he would drop the "nuclear bomb" and have the GOP minority eliminate the filibuster? No need for that. The Democratic leadership is too wimpy to try such a bold move as standing up for principle.)

Here is an excerpt from what we had to say then about what the Republicans have been doing to achieve their goals to undermine the Constitution by filling the official ranks with party loyalists:

One of the most effective judges in implementing partisan Republican policies from the federal bench has been David Sentelle. He is like the Zelig of GOP judicial activism -- from appointing Ken Starr to exonerating Ollie North and Admiral Poindexter, from letting Dick Cheney keep the publics' energy papers secret to approving Bush secret search warrants: the guy seems to show up everywhere the GOP needs a judicial hatchet man.

According to the book "The Hunting of the President," in an article written while he was on the U.S. Appeals Court, Sentelle "accused 'leftist heretics' of scheming to turn the United States into 'a collectivist, egalitarian, materialistic, race-conscious, hyper-secular, and socially permissive state.'" This is not Ann Coulter, who makes her living out of outrageous and often violent comments about liberals; this is a federal judge who played a key role in passing out Iran-Contra "get out of jail cards" and set-up the impeachment of Bill Clinton. He is similar to those historical revisionist wingers who claim that Hitler was really a leftist.

A book BuzzFlash sold last year was entitled "Take Them at Their Words." Only a fool wouldn't.

They use the language of psychotics and violence, of the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials.

They are serious. And more of them are coming on the bench.

And just a couple of weeks ago, the chronically Bush-enabling Dianne Feinstein made it possible for another one of them, Leslie Southwick, to join his fellow hacks as a federal judge when she was the only Democrat to vote for his confirmation with the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But back to our case study, David Sentelle.

As you can see from the quotation in our excerpt, Sentelle's core beliefs amount to a Rush Limbaugh rant on a day when he is in his uber-demagogue mode. And remember Sentelle "accused 'leftist heretics' of scheming to turn the United States into 'a collectivist, egalitarian, materialistic, race-conscious, hyper-secular, and socially permissive state" while sitting as an active judge on the D.C. Court of Appeals!

To understand Sentelle a bit, you need to know his origins and chief political sponsor.

Sentelle is a former North Carolina GOP state party official and attorney (Mecklenburg County Republican Chairman in 1979-1980). He was a Jesse Helms protege. Helms got Reagan's people to appoint Sentelle to the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. Ironically, when his wing nut soulmate, Antonin Scalia, was appointed to the Supreme Court, Sentelle was "moved up" to the D.C. Appellate Court to succeed him there. (It should be noted that former NC Senator Lauch Faircloth -- who John Edwards defeated in 1998 -- was also an active promoter of Sentelle and played a role in Sentelle's appointment of Ken Starr for the purpose of finding a legal toehold to impeach Bill Clinton.)

That was in 1987, which makes it 20 years that Sentelle has been wreaking havoc on the Constitution and protecting the backside of Republican Administrations, while assisting the effort to bring down a Democratic president in the 8-year interview between GOP control of the White House.

We'll close this BuzzFlash Editor's Blog entry with just one example of the "minor" damage Sentelle has done in his rulings, based on his right wing extremist Jesse Helms style agenda.

As a New York Times article reported on November 22, 1994, Sentelle played a key Appellate Court panel role in reversing a ruling that would have protected endangered species based on the destruction of their habitat. The Times entitled their report, "Appellate Ruling Called a Threat to Endangered Species Act." The article ended with this, "The judge who reversed himself in March was Judge Stephen F. Williams. Voting both times to protect the habitat was Chief Judge Abner J. Mikva, while Judge David B. Sentelle voted against extending such protection."

Yes, David B. Sentelle is rock solid against protecting endangered species, but it is democracy and the Constitution that he endangers the most.